


say my name, and every color illuminates

by florenceandthemachine



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26436982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florenceandthemachine/pseuds/florenceandthemachine
Summary: “Eddie?”“Hang on, Buck.”Buck felt good. Damn, he hadn’t felt this good in ages. When was the last time that he woke up without an ache in his leg, or the burn of water going down his throat? He honestly couldn’t remember.Best of all, when he looked up… there was Eddie, arms around him, and Buck was so happy he could burst. Eddie always made him so happy. Eddie was, like, the best person in the entire world… even when he looked sad.“S’wrong, Eddie?”“Just hang on, okay? Just stay awake.”
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 477





	say my name, and every color illuminates

“Eddie?”

“Hang on, Buck.”

Buck felt good. Damn, he hadn’t felt this good in ages. When was the last time that he woke up without an ache in his leg, or the burn of water going down his throat? He honestly couldn’t remember. 

Best of all, when he looked up… there was Eddie, arms around him, and Buck was so happy he could burst. Eddie always made him so happy. Eddie was, like, the best person in the entire world… even when he looked sad.

“S’wrong, Eddie?”

“Just hang on, okay? Just stay awake.”

Stay awake? He could do that. He felt _great_. Well rested. Happy. Comfortable. Which, he had to admit, wasn’t what he expected after their last call. Structural collapse in one of the METRO tunnels during regular maintenance. The 118 and four other houses had been called to try and help dig out some of the construction workers. At some point in time, he and Eddie had been separated from Hen and Him after they managed to pull another engineer from the subterranean rubble, but… that was the last thing Buck remembered.

Which probably wasn’t a good sign.

When had he gone to sleep?

Buck thought his heart would be racing if he had an ounce of adrenaline left in him, but at it was, his body seemed to have been tapped out. He looked back up to Eddie, his vision a little clearer, clear enough to make out the lines of dust and grime on Eddie’s face, the way his light was dancing in the dark tunnel, the… were those tear tracks on his face?

He frowned, ready to ask what was going on, but before he could, he felt a tugging around his shoulder. Eddie wasn’t holding him, he was dragging him, his hand clamped around what looked like a tear in his suit, right under his right shoulder.

It didn’t take a genius to guess that the tear probably went through his body, too. 

“Eddie?”

Looking back to where they had come from, Buck frowned, seeing scuff marks, debris, and what looked like motor oil, a slick dark trail leading back to them, and it also didn’t take a genius to realize that a bloody trail was also really, really not a good sign. 

At the very least, that answered the question as to why Eddie didn’t have him in a proper fire carry. Pressure on the wound trumped everything else. 

“Eddie.”

He repeated himself, a little louder this time, turning his head to look up at Eddie, but the other was resolutely not looking at him, just looking over his shoulder as he dragged Buck backwards. He didn’t know where they were going—and he doubted that Eddie did, either—and that just wouldn’t do. He wasn’t about to die here, lost in the tunnels of LA, without at least getting Eddie to look at him. 

_“Edmundo.”_

His voice was probably a little rough around the edges, but he knew that wasn’t the reason that Eddie looked at him like he had just spoken ill of the dead. Their pace never wavered, and for that Buck was thankful, but it now felt like he had Eddie’s undivided attention.

Well, not that he didn’t have it before. But Buck was always an “eyes on me” kind of guy.

“It’s going to be okay, Edmundo.” Buck tried for a smile, and at first, he thought he had succeeded in his goal, but the color all but drained from Eddie’s face—the patches of skin he could see underneath dirt and grime, anyway—as Eddie upped his pace. 

“Don’t talk like that, Buck.”

Buck had to snort—at least, he tried to snort, but it probably came out more of a wheeze-laugh. “Talk like what, like I’m dying?”

The wave of grief that he saw roll over Eddie’s face made him almost regret saying that, but Buck knew it was true. If he could come to that conclusion after some probably serious physical trauma (which he was so glad he didn’t remember) and what he assumed was a significant amount of blood loss, he was sure Eddie already had as well–and if he hadn’t, he needed to. 

“You have to tell Maddie I love her.”

“Buck, don’t you fucking dare—”

“Everyone in the house, too.”

“Buck, please!” Eddie’s shift from anger to pleading in about two seconds was a bit of a shock, almost as bad as the wrecked expression on his face. “Come on, Buck, you can’t—you don’t talk like that, you can’t! I’m not—I can’t let—Evan, fucking stop!”

Buck felt his face brighten as Eddie spoke, beaming up at him, tilting his heads he felt his eyes droop a little bit. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say my name before. I… I like it.”

Eddie laughed, but the sound was wet, and it took Buck zero seconds to decide he liked Eddie’s regular laugh better. 

“Evan, God, just stay awake and stop talking like that and I’ll call you whatever you want.”

Buck smiled again, feeling his gut twist, shaking his head. He would have loved to stop, but there was no way in hell he was going to risk leaving this fucking world without saying his piece.

“Edmundo, you gotta tell them, okay? You gotta tell them—and you gotta tell Chris, too.”

“Evan…”

“I’m serious.” he said, his smile falling off his face, letting his free arm come up to squeeze one of Eddie’s arms, still diligently pulling him to safety. “You gotta tell him that I love him, and I’m sorry, okay? He’s such a good kid. and he’s gonna need you to help him through this, okay? You have to be there for him.”

“Evan. Please, you gotta stop that, you can’t. You have to stay with us, I can’t—Evan, I can’t do this without you.” Something wet hit Buck’s face as he looked up, and—oh. Eddie was crying. Eddie was crying, over him. 

Wasn’t that a bitch.

Buck felt his throat start to tighten up as the tunnel got lighter around him, and he was man enough to admit that he was scared (even if he wasn’t about to announce that to Eddie, who was probably going through enough on his own right now). 

“I want to tell you—”

“Evan, please, _please_ , don’t.”

“—I love you, Edmundo.”

“No!”

Buck looked up in surprise as Eddie snapped at him, watching new tear tracks forming in the dust on his face. “No, you don’t get to tell me that right now. You don’t get to say that when you think you’re going to… No!”

Buck could feel his throat start to tighten up again. “Eddie—”

“Tell me later, Evan.” Eddie snapped, and it was all Buck could do to nod his head as he sniffed. 

The light was getting brighter around him. 

Buck closed his eyes.

He was scared. 

–

The next time Buck woke up, he most certainly did not feel good, and that in itself was probably a great sign if it weren’t so damn inconvenient. He opened his eyes slowly, his body feeling like it was cast in cement, weighed down by the impossibly thin hospital blanket that was wrapped around his body. 

He didn’t have to look far to see Eddie sitting beside him, phone up to his ear, a small smile on his face. Buck could hear Christopher’s voice on the other end of the phone—talking about his day at school, probably—but what really caught his attention was the fact that Eddie’s other hand was wrapped around his own. 

Eddie was holding his hand in a hospital bed, and honestly, he didn’t know if it got better than that. 

He let himself watch for a few more moments, his breathing still even and slow, taking in the small smile that Eddie gave to his phone as he hung up.

Buck couldn’t believe he had almost missed this. He couldn’t believe that he had almost left without saying anything, and even if he was a little bit pissed off that Eddie didn’t let him say what he wanted to say at the time… well, he could always make up for it now.

And he could make up for it now.

Fuck.

“Edmundo?”

Honestly, now that they were on a first name basis, Buck wasn’t sure he was ever going to go back. Especially after he watched Eddie almost drop his phone in shock, attention suddenly laser focused on him. The hand around his own squeezed, almost too-tight, but Buck just smiled wider, a happy sigh leaving his lips. 

“I love you.”

Eddie froze as Buck felt his smile grow, and then he was beaming, relief etched into every line of his face, and fuck, they were probably both about to start crying again. 

His free hand came up to cup Buck’s cheek and Buck found himself leaning into the touch, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder as he moved his neck.

“I love you too, Evan.”

Buck may have still felt like he got hit by a truck, but he was back on cloud nine, feeling the warmth from Eddie’s hand spread through his body, better than anything that he could have imagined.

“And if you ever pull that shit again, I swear to god—”

Still better than he could have ever imagined.

**Author's Note:**

> [come scream at me on tumblr.](https://florenceandthemachine.tumblr.com)


End file.
